It depends largely on the quality of your own ears and what you normally listen to your music with.
The first question is whether you can even notice any perceptible quality between a 128kbps AAC file and the original CD. If you can't even notice that at any significant level, then 256kbps is not going to make much of a difference.
Further, if you're normally only listening to the iPod in your car, or using the stock Apple earbuds, or a similar basic pair of earbuds, or a noisy environment, or an average home speaker system, chances the quality differences are going to be imperceptible. You'd need earphones along the lines of the Shure e2c's or better to even begin to hear a difference in most cases.
The best way to tell is to grab a copy of your own CD and try importing it at 256kbps and 128kbps and then do a "blind" test and see if you can tell the difference. iTunes 7.3 now offers a pre-set for the 256kbps AAC iTunes Plus equivalent encoding, although you've always been able to do this manually as well.
Of course, all of that having been said, the lack of DRM on the iTunes Plus tracks is probably a huge benefit in and of itself. It means that you can convert these to MP3 freely (without having to burn them to CD first), and you can play them natively on any device that supports AAC (which many cell phones and other modern DAPs do).
The first question is whether you can even notice any perceptible quality between a 128kbps AAC file and the original CD. If you can't even notice that at any significant level, then 256kbps is not going to make much of a difference.
Further, if you're normally only listening to the iPod in your car, or using the stock Apple earbuds, or a similar basic pair of earbuds, or a noisy environment, or an average home speaker system, chances the quality differences are going to be imperceptible. You'd need earphones along the lines of the Shure e2c's or better to even begin to hear a difference in most cases.
The best way to tell is to grab a copy of your own CD and try importing it at 256kbps and 128kbps and then do a "blind" test and see if you can tell the difference. iTunes 7.3 now offers a pre-set for the 256kbps AAC iTunes Plus equivalent encoding, although you've always been able to do this manually as well.
Of course, all of that having been said, the lack of DRM on the iTunes Plus tracks is probably a huge benefit in and of itself. It means that you can convert these to MP3 freely (without having to burn them to CD first), and you can play them natively on any device that supports AAC (which many cell phones and other modern DAPs do).
